Penny Edgell
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Ph.D. 1995 University of Chicago
Room 1074 Social Sciences
tel.: 612-624-9828
email: edgell@umn.edu
website: http://www.umn.edu/~edgell
Interest Areas
Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Culture, Qualitative Methods, Family and Gender, Organizations.
Current Research
Penny Edgell’s research provides a window into fundamental questions of the nature of religious institutions in the United States and how they have been affected by changing gender roles and family forms, increasing racial and ethnic pluralism, and the restructuring of the life-course, and how they help create ideological and social change. She is interested in how religious communities provide the cultural tools through which people frame, understand, and act meaningfully in contemporary American society. She is currently working on a national study of religion and family life, analyzing what kinds of support religious communities and networks provide for managing work and family life for those in a variety of social contexts. She is also working with colleagues Joseph Gerteis and Douglas Hartmann on the American Mosaic project, a study of how racial and religious identities influence conceptions of American identity, and how Americans make sense of racial, religious, and other forms of diversity.
Selected Publications
"Religious Influences on Understandings of Racial Inequality in the United States," with Eric Tranby. 2007. Social Problems, 54(2):263-288.
"Religion and Work-Family Tradeoffs," with Samantha Ammons. 2007. Journal of Family Issues, 28(6):794-826.
"Beyond the Nuclear Family? Familism and Gender Ideology in Diverse Religious Communities," with Danielle Docka. 2007. Sociological Forum, 22(1):25-50.
"Atheists as ‘Other’: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society," with Joseph Gerteis and Douglas Hartmann. 2006. American Sociological Review, 72(2): 211-234.
Religion and Family in a Changing Society. 2005. Series in Cultural Sociology, DiMaggio, Lamont, Wuthnow, and Zelizer, series eds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- ASA Sociology of Religion section Book Award
"In Rhetoric and Practice: Defining ‘The Good Family’ in Local Congregations." 2003. Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, Michele Dillon, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.
"Scaling Back: Dual-Earner Couples’ Work-Family Strategies," with Phyllis Moen. 1999. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61: 995-1007.
Congregations in Conflict: Cultural Models of Local Religious Life. 1999. New York: Cambridge University Press.